


So Hit Me With The Riptide

by Dikhotomia



Series: Whumptober 2k19: FE3H Edition [22]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Day 22 Hallucination, Gen, Set during the five year timeskip, at least a small part of it, basically I wanted to kind of explore Rhea's descent into madness, on CF route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: "Lady Rhea?"She wheels, tensed and angry and ready for another fight with another there but not there figure only to come face to face with Catherine. The younger woman's hands raise, worry written across the line of her face. "Hey whoa it's just me," she assures and Rhea relaxes, if only slightly."OR'Betrayal' cuts deep.





	So Hit Me With The Riptide

The library is one of the quietest places in the castle, but she realizes that the silence is as bad as the noise is as bad as her room when the people that come and go aren't always real. She sees the guards as they patrol, stopping to look at her quietly and probably wonder what it is she's laughing about, what nonsense she talks about when she does. When she's not staring at the wall or the floor or the books in front of her. When she's not aimlessly wandering with the shadows of people she knew once a long time ago. She understands Dimitri's suffering more than he's aware, living among her own hallucinations of those dead.

Or those she wants dead.

"You were supposed to be the one," she mutters as something she knows shouldn't be there passes by out of the corner of her vision, begging for attention she doesn't dare give (_but you will, you always will)_. "You were supposed to be, then you left...just...left. How could you? How dare you...?" She looks up as white swims into her line of sight, staring up at the figure that watches her now. "Of course it's you," she mumbles, closing her eyes, covering her ears.

"Not today," she rasps. "Please not today."

The figure speaks despite her begging, voice distant, familiar and incomprehensible. The hand that rests on the top of her head is warm but unforgiving, speaking of her failure, of her sins. She tried, but it wasn't right, wasn't good enough and had she learned nothing? "Stop," she hisses between her teeth, knees drawn to her chest, the shelf digging hard into her back.

As small as she can be.

But it's not small enough. She can't disappear, can't get away from the dead Nabateans that circle her now. Y_ou let this happen. If you had controlled her better --_

_You should have killed her when you had the chance --_

"Silence!" Rhea roars, rising out of the ball she'd curled herself in, a singular book arched through the clear figure of her mother. "You don't know anything!"_ Not when you just left again-_

"Lady Rhea?" 

She wheels, tensed and angry and ready for another fight with another there but not there figure only to come face to face with Catherine. The younger woman's hands raise, worry written across the line of her face. "Hey whoa it's just me," she assures and Rhea relaxes, if only slightly.

"What is it, Catherine?" She asks, pressing her fingers to her eyes, desperate to rub away the exhaustion, the madness. The rage that is both hers and the betrayed.  
The Professor stands just behind Catherine, watching her with the same familiar impassivity, but her eyes are darker, hinting at the evil that had slept within her. The corruption. Rhea wants to reach out and take those eyes, crush her throat and tear her heart out like she promised. But the woman isn't real, just another figure of her imagination that's haunted her since -

How long has it been?

"Nothing," Catherine replies, jerking Rhea's attention back to where she stands. Closer now, reaching out but hesitant to touch. "I just heard you yelling so I came to make sure everything was okay."

"Everything is fine." _It's not._ "I didn't mean to worry you." _You can't help me. Not with this._

Catherine watches her like she doesn't believe her and Rhea forces a smile she doesn't feel. Her skin itches with the desire to do something, to take action, her mind a torrent of too many things to keep track of. Too many things she doesn't want but that persist anyway. 

_She sees them, she sees her home. Painted red like her hands, like her clothes, like her mother's hall -_

"Hey." 

She startles, going rigid underneath the hands placed on her shoulders, that slide down to hold her biceps. Gentle, solid, warm and real. She inhales once, holding the breath in her lungs until they burn. Then she let's it out, forcing the tension to go with it. "I'm tired, Catherine," she admits, closing her eyes. "But sleep evades me." Because every time she closes them she sees Nemesis, sees the Professor. The two of them almost indistinguishable.

She sees Edelgard and the students that followed, that now meet their resistance on the battlefield. They fight while all they can do is stonewall them, keep pushing back without making any ground. She hates them for their heresy.

"You look it." Again Catherine is there to break her out of her thoughts, to bring her back and ground her in the now. "I won't tell you to try and get some sleep, but If you decide to...I'll keep watch over you."

The offer doesn't quiet the writhing inside of her chest or the ugly thoughts that still push their way in past the barriers she keeps (futily) trying to build. But it's a start, a slight balm that drives back the darkness around her.

"If it is not too much trouble," she replies, rubbing her hand across her face and through her hair. "I would greatly appreciate your company." 

Catherine grins, her hands dropping back to her sides. "It's no trouble at all."


End file.
